ChokLit-coated R&B Flava straight outta tha ChokLitFactory.

Teairra Marie quietly released her video for Sponsor a couple weeks ago. The song has been getting airplay for a minute now, though her label has again taken too long to produce a video. As I have said before, I like Teairra; I think she has a nice, pleasant voice, she can sing and is cute to look at, but she has got to do better and come harder if she wants to succeed in this Industry. Here are some of my thoughts on the video:

Dance or Sing: Choose ONE!

The choreography in this video is severely lackluster. My sister’s high school talent shows produced better dance sequences than this. And Teairra was tiptoeing through most of the routine like she didn’t want to break a sweat. If Rihanna can wine up a storm without looking foolish, Teairra will have to do more than spread her legs or prop her ass up. #DoBetter

Lack of Star Rapper

Sadly, like many artists who paid good money to work with Gucci Mane while he was still hot and relevant, then had to produce videos without the star feature since he is currently incarcerated, Womp Womp to them. Gucci may be the Lil Wayne of 2010 (when comparing how many R&B song features he is doing), but these constant video absences won’t cut it.

As much as I love me some Mariah *straighface* , I had to name this post Milk Dudd. Last month I reported that Mariah would be releasing a remix album to her Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel album that was a solid effort but failed to catch on commercially. Next I heard, Def Jam was cutting the strings on promotions for Angel, but would still move forward with the Remix project. They released Up Out My Face feat. Nikki Minaj and Angels Cry feat. Ne-Ye some weeks back. Now we have the videos to accompany the music. Ummmm the jury’s out for me on this project – it is getting the side-eye from me. Nick Cannon directed both videos…and it looks like Mariah possibly paid for both videos. Mariah and Nikki are definitely very cute and animated, bringing life to their song. With Angels Cry however, I couldn’t get past the first minute…without yawning. See what you guys think.

*Sidenote: I wonder how Nikki’s album is coming along. She is EVERYWHERE these days!

If you all have been paying attention during the past couple weeks, you may have picked up on my obsession with Alicia’s second single, Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart. Since I heard it the first time, I knew it would become a number one hit! I even provided updates on the video’s progress with a preview video a week ago. All in anticipation. But there is such a thing as too much anticipation. Sadly, Alicia’s video falls very flat for me. The Hancock/Rogue from X-Men concept is a different take on the song, but still does not do it any justice. Syndrome’s usual animated style of direction is not even used here. Of course Alicia looks great, but this video is beyond boring for me and the ending only slightly intrigued me. Also Alicia’s purple jumpsuit at the end is a big no-no for me. Her stylist can only seem to get right 50% of the time. Hopefully this will be an example of the song doing well despite the video being a stinker. But that’s just my opinion – what did you all think?

Omarion has returned to the scene sans Young Money (after a public fallout with the Clan) to ink a new deal with EMI records and release his new single, Get it in featuring Gucci Man. Since I am an Omarion fan (fuhgettabout the Face Off album, k?), I decided to post his video – though I am not crazy about it. I never really cared for the song too much, though Omarion’s dancing is fun to watch. It doesn’t look like Gucci even made the video shoot as he is in the background visuals during all of his scenes in the video. Ho-hum. I will patiently wait until Omarion comes back at us with some REAL R&B, like his former hit, O.

Also in Omarion news, he recently spoke with Sister 2 Sister magazine saying,

“No disrespect, but no Amber Rose for me. Everybody has their past – and don’t get me wrong, I’m not judgemental at all – but I do like a certain amount of class.”

Regarding his rumored marriage to a former stripper (???):

“I’m not married. I’m chilling. At this moment I’m not (dating). I have friends that I converse with, and I have that male-female camaraderie, but there’s no girlfriend at the moment”

Kudos to you Omarion. See ladies, you don’t have to be a stripper to snag a rapper/singer/athlete. You can have beauty and brains 🙂 I’m sure that’s not what Omarion meant, but what is sexier than some class? I will raise my glass to the Choosey Lover any day.

I am posting this video…just for kicks! I’m sure by now, everyone has seen this mess. I’m confused. The blogosphere first reported that Drake was filming this video and that Kanye West would be directing it. We saw some pictures from the video set and were introduce to the lead girl, a cute Puerto Rican chick with a chest. We even saw pics of Amber Rose posin’ up with supposed Ex-Boyfriend Kanye on set. So needless to say, there was some anticipation for the video. But when it was finally delivered, all we could muster was a “Womp Womp Woooommmp” and a “That’s it??” Coming from Kanye, I expected more…but then again, maybe I didn’t. Coming from Drake, him being the next BIG thing, and this song hittin’ the top 5 on the Billboard 100, I was expecting a video with money behind it. We got neither. Just a lot of t*tties…some more t*tties and…some t*tties. I couldn’t even recognize a lead girl. The girls’ B-ball outfits looked like they were made by a 5-year in kindergarten and the storyline was beyond wack. There were some obvious jokes of course: ‘Take that D like the champions you are!” and “But Drake, all you ever taught us to do was stretch!” But someone should have told Kanye that we all know he is into lesbians and we don’t really care! Maybe Little X can do a re-make and we can make this a true Canadian connection 🙂 Until then, enjoy! Well…try to.

Back before TheDream’s near flawless album, Love vs. Money was released, I posted a leak of this song, Walking on the Moon featuring Kanye West. But once the album came out, I was able to enjoy it in its entirety and this song fell on to the back-burner. Instead I was bumpin’, Take Her Home to My Mama, Mr. Yeah, or Put it Down instead. But…Def Jam still decided to release this song as TheDream’s third single. More likely because of Kanye being featured in the song will raise Dream’s profile in Mainstream media, a bit more. So I pocketed my opinions and watched the video, directed by one of my favourites, Hype Williams.

I’m sorry, this is a big NO for me. The video has stolen from been inspired by Michael & Janet Jackson’s innovative video, Scream. And I understand the recession, but this video looks cheap. From Dream’s homemade studded leather jacket to the played out black pleather gloves, you get the feeling they scaled back significantly on the Dream’s wardrobe in order to afford Kanye’s (he is the fashionista after all). The video models are pretty and Kanye raps his best lines to a dark Choklit model who seems as uninterested in the video as I am. The video looks like it is looking for its star, but Dream doesn’t fit the role, unfortunately. I hope this single does raise Dream’s profile a bit more, because I doubt we will be seeing another video from this stellar album. Can’t win ’em all I guess.

Now I am a fan of Rihanna’s style and her hot haircut. I think many of us are. In fact, many of you may have rushed to the salon to request the Rihanna – you know you have. So it is no surprise when we see Black women (and other women) sporting the short, cropped look. We’ve seen this look with Brooke Crittendon of Harlem Heights fame as well. Brooke took it further with the goth-inspired look that Rihanna also sported throughout 2008. But no biggie, we are all a little guilty. And Rihanna did not ‘invent’ the look.

Have you guys heard this Tom Foolery?? I told myself I wouldn’t post anything from Woman Beater, but I was interested in hearing the track so I thought my Readers might be as well. I’m not gonna say too much, only that its not THAT kind of apology – meaning the right one. The song is something about a dude being sorry for cheating on his girl. CB is still whining his way through the lyrics and I am not impressed as usual – BUT I will say, I do like the vocal arrangement of the song and the subtle production. This could have gone to my boy Trey, or Ne-Yo..even Latif would have done the song justice…oh well.

Ok, we will address this Cassie thing, only because she has recently released a new song with my dude, The Dream.

Before..

So this past weekend, Ms Cassie decided to shave off half of her head. She posted pics of her new ‘do on Twitter and also added this official ‘statement’:

“Sometimes in life, you need a change. Something deeper than what you thought you were capable of. Something that displays the “I don’t give a f*ck” attitude that was always present but never showcased. Something that makes you look at this whole wide world differently. And something that will shock your mother, but will make her call you a ROCKSTAR. Yea I did it…“

After various comments and responses on her Twitter page (what did she think would happen??) Cassie again responded:”They ask why?? Lol… B/C I WOKE UP AND FELT LIKE IT!!! YEEEAHHH!!! LOL 🙂 Have a great weekend!xx”Source

Well…I guess Homegirl is officially a ‘Rockstar’! Diddy needs to come get his girl, and make her the Official girl already…but alas, this is just for attention, we know. A couple weeks ago we posted her new track with Diddy, Must be Love, and now she gets a new ‘Look’ and a “I don’t give a F*ck’ attitude to match… Did we really need the Twitter announcement? And the official statements? Hmmmm…

So, you probably don’t care…but I watch this new BET show, Harlem Heights with some invested interest. About as much interest as I can give a scripted ‘Reality’ show that has June Ambrose styling the young fashionistas professionals living in the historic Harlem neighbourhood of New York. Here is a pic I borrowed from the YBF of one of the main characters, Brooke, who is now being seen around town (and is all a Twitter) with her new Boo Christian, also from the show. I think they make a cute pair!

IF you are watching, Brooke is randomly dating Pierre, but he is definitely not her type. Christian is more ’round the way and he has piqued Brooke’s interest ever since she found out he has been seeing her arch nemesis, Ashlei. I already feel cheap for adding this post! But we’ll see what you guys think (ie. comments!!) about it, and if it flops big time, we will NEVER do a post like this again! ChokLit scout’s honor! 😛

*Side Note: Brooke is Kanye’s former girlfirend, whom he dated before Alexis. She was working for MTV at the time he met her, now she got her own show on BET. Hustle on ChokLit lady…

*Side Note 2: Ladies (and dudes!), if you are interested, Jenn over at The ‘B-Life’ did a good feature on Christian that you may wanna check out, here.